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The Dutch process automation user association WIB organized their annual seminar in The Hague, Netherlands on March 23rd. WIB Chairman Alex van Delft (DSM) framed the session by indicating the aspects usually associated with sustainability: economy, society, and environment and indicated that company boards take sustainability more and more as their responsibility. He referred to the “5-box” model he often uses to describe the components of change: systems/tools, processes and skills. Together, these can bring about behavioral change, that enables sustainable change. Indeed, industry and society must sustainably change behaviors and improve sustainability as a long-term journey.
Udo Enste from Leikon, member of the sister organization NAMUR, reported about the recently concluded European Project MORE. The overall goal was to reduce industrial emissions and increase efficiency. To provide clear meaning for operations, the consortium defined KPI’s relative to best performance in comparable circumstances. Several dozen KPIs have been defined together with their formulas. To apply, these metrics should be put in context. With a simple data model mapped to plant tags, identifying variables in context of material, energy, and type, the calculations can be applied quickly. Implementing these KPIs at several INEOS sites for on-line monitoring on decision support showed the importance of comparing plant and site performance, since optimization at individual plants does not necessarily improve the global performance. The work will be translated into a NAMUR standard and an IEC Technical Report. We recommend that users check out the project website and reuse the available results, available at no cost.
MORE Deliverable: Example Dashboard For INEOS Case study
Bert de Wilde presented ExxonMobil’s Open Automation initiative. ARC’s Harry Forbes has reported on this initiative extensively in openly accessible posts on this blog as well as in reports for ARC clients. We encourage readers to look for articles on this subject by ARC’s Harry Forbes.
Andreas Ten Cate of the Institute of Sustainable Process Technology (ISPT), explained how his organization brings together different disciplines from different research organizations and industries and works on a wide range of sustainability themes. He used the example of agent-based simulation applied to miniaturization, intensification, and modular production technology as introduced by the F3 Factory project, to show that novel techniques can create surprising insights. In the example the research showed that producing a chemical in four smaller plants, rather than one large plant could increase operating profit by more than 25%.
Johan Ike from AkzoNobel, reported on a Sustainable Energy Management initiative to diagnose sites regarding their energy usage and identify savings potential. After more than 50 site assessments, Johan found that depending on the type of site (chemical or coating) between 20 and 50% of savings identified had a payback of less than three years. Johan stressed that the human factors are an essential ingredient of success. People need to have direction (know what to do), the right capabilities, obtain feedback when they do something, and need motivation (reward after action) he said.
After assessing more than 50 sites, Johan’s average, prioritized opportunity list is:
Basic:
- Maintenance
- Awareness (visualization)
- Control/timers/tuning
- On/off setpoints (e.g. turning of idling motors)
- Insulation building and pipelines
- efficient equipment (e.g. high efficiency motors)
- Heat recovery
Advanced:
- Prevent rework / off spec
- Over dimensioned equipment
- Excess quality
- Planning improvement
- Transport
- Renewables
The items in bold are process control subjects. Johan mentioned that two-thirds of control loops are not properly tuned, causing potential cost, energy and material waste. He mentioned that advanced process control could be applied more often to reduce variability and operate more optimally under constraints.
Pascal van Lith of BASF Antwerp, reported on the activities of a WIB working group on making automation maturity transparent. Pascal pointed out that plants need both maturity in operation and maturity in sustaining and improving the capability. The working group defined maturity stages and categories in both dimensions. They found dependencies between capabilities. For example, the success of high-performance HMIs depends on high-quality basic automation capabilities.
WIB publishes seminar presentations with open access a few weeks after the seminar. ARC recommends community members interested in one or more subjects to check out the WIB site for more information.